14 DAY TRIAL // HP is trying really hard to maintain control over the market segment dedicated to hardcore gamers that demand the latest and most powerful hardware components in order to satisfy their quest for the ultimate gaming experience. As Dell acquired Alienware, a company well known for its high performance gaming desktop and mobile computer systems, HP, as the number one computer manufacturer in the world could not sit idly and watch gamers orient themselves toward a competing company so they too acquired a high end gaming hardware producer: Voodoo PC.
This new HP division, Voodoo PC is well known for its high performance and custom built gaming laptops and desktops which sport a lot of interesting features like lavish paint jobs, unique cooling solutions, and impeccable wiring alongside the latest and most powerful hardware components available on the market. The answer to all the gaming rigs built by Alienware and Dell is the Blackbird computer system built by HP and Voodoo PC engineers. The Blackbird comes equipped with the latest Intel central processing unit designed for desktop computers, the Core 2 Extreme QX6850 overclocked from factory to 3.67GHz which is housed by a high end motherboard made by Asus. The Asus Striker Extreme is based on the ultimate performance delivering chipset for the Intel platform, the Nvidia nForce 680i, ironically not an Intel chipset, which of course supports SLI and according to the manufacturing company it has been re-engineered in order to support even CrossFire. In a revealing interview with Custom PC, HP Gaming's chief technologist, Rahul Sood, said: "What's really cool is that we're only using the nForce chipset for Intel, because it's the best chipset, but we're also giving the choice of CrossFire or SLI on it."
Like all gaming machines, the HP's Blackbird comes with an impressive amount of random access memory, 4GB to be more specific, packed in four 1GB DDR2-8500 memory modules made by Corsair which are placed in a dual channel configuration in order to achieve the best possible bandwidth needed by the powerful Intel processor. While the Blackbird will come with support for both SLI and CrossFire, the model 002 offers only a SLI setup made up of two Nvidia centered graphics cards which are based on the GeForce 8800 Ultra GPU and come with a standard 768MB of video memory. In order to maximize the graphics performance, both of the cards are running in full x16 mode.
Cooling such a high-end machine is not a child's play so HP and Voodoo PC engineers looked for a custom designed liquid cooling solution and they choose the Asetek's Low Cost Liquid Cooling system also known as LCLC. Maybe one of the reasons behind HP's chosen cooling provider is the fact that the Asetek cooler works with a wide range of processors and graphics cards from Intel, AMD, ATI and Nvidia. On the storage department, the Blackbird comes with some fast and spacious storage devices including a Seagate 320GB and a Western Digital 160GB hard disk drives which are using the fast data transferring Serial ATA II interface. An optional optical drive compatible with the Blu-ray format is also available as it is the included slot-load HP DVD burner. When it comes to connectors the HP Blackbird gaming machine is equipped with two External SATA ports as well as four high speed USB ports and a FireFire 1394 connector. All in all the HP's desktop computer system looks as a formidable addition to any gamer and while its price tag running between $2,500 and $6,500 may very well make most people orient themselves toward cheaper solutions, keep in mind that the Blackbird was never designed to be a computer for the masses.